A prison teacher was killed in a frenzied knife attack by her controlling and obsessive ex-lover who refused to accept the relationship was over, a court heard.

Keith Prest lay in wait in the car park of East Sutton Park open prison, Maidstone, one afternoon and stabbed Louise Evans 43 times, it was alleged.

Alan Kent, prosecuting, said all of the 48-year-old victim’s major organs - heart, lung on the left side, liver, spleen and kidneys - were penetrated.

The mother-of-two’s body lay undiscovered for an hour before being found by another worker at the women’s prison.

Mr Kent told Maidstone Crown Court that Miss Evans, from Hothfield, near Ashford, met Prest, 59, in the autumn of 2005 through text dating and they had a whirlwind romance.

They moved in together within two weeks, but the relationship became characterised by violence.

"He sought to control her, he sought to dominate her," the prosecutor told the jury of nine men and three women. "When he couldn’t get his own way, or if she did something he disapproved of, he would assault her.

"That would lead to her leaving him on numerous occasions but each time she left him he persuaded her by various means to go back to him."

By the summer of last year, as far as Miss Evans, who taught English to foreign inmates, was concerned the relationship was over and she had a new boyfriend.

In the days leading up to the killing Prest made numerous telephone calls to her and left notes on her car and at her home. At the time of the attack on September 12 last year, he was on bail after being accused of assaulting her.

Mr Kent said Prest had been arrested and held in custody for breaching conditions to stay away from Miss Evans.

But he was granted bail again and continued to stalk her, making threats to kill her and commit suicide.

There were no witnesses to the stabbing and the scene was not covered by CCTV. "That may come as a surprise bearing in mind this was a women’s open prison," said the prosecutor.

There was compelling circumstantial evidence, he said, to show Prest was the killer.

Prest, of no fixed address, denies murder, claiming her was not the attacker.

The trial continues.